Hearts will go out to Kerry Needham, who for 25 years has hoped her missing toddler son will be found alive.

Police evidence suggesting blond Ben – just 21 months old when he vanished on the Greek island of Kos in July 1991 – might have been crushed by a JCB digger and his body buried by the driver is devastating.

Whether he is alive or dead will never be proved until either Ben is found living somewhere or his remains are discovered and DNA tests establish the truth.

Mum Kerry has spent her life searching for her boy and the agony is surely unimaginable to all except others, perhaps including the family of Madeleine McCann , enduring similar hell.

Ben Needham has been missing for 25 years (Image: Daily Mirror)

When distressed parents speak of wanting to know what happened, they usually mean they want to be reunited with the missing loved one.

Nobody can predict the outcome of the latest police search in Greece.

But concerned people everywhere will hope, despite the odds lengthening with each passing year, that Kerry is miraculously reunited with Ben.